The custom shipping container holding NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is prepared for unloading from the C-17 of the United States Air Force’s 436th Airlift Wing after landing at Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville, Florida, on the morning of April 3, 2018.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman

NASA is inviting people around the world to submit their names online to be placed on a microchip aboard NASA’s historic Parker Solar Probe mission launching in summer 2018. The mission will travel through the Sun’s atmosphere, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions — and your name will go along for the ride.

“This probe will journey to a region humanity has never explored before,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This mission will answer questions scientists have sought to uncover for more than six decades.”After unloading, the spacecraft was taken to Astrotech Space Operations, also in Titusville, for pre-launch testing and preparations.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman

Understanding the Sun has always been a top priority for space scientists. Studying how the Sun affects space and the space environment of planets is the field known as heliophysics. The field is not only vital to understanding Earth’s most important and life-sustaining star, it supports exploration in the solar system and beyond.Parker Solar Probe – wrapped in protective plastic – is shown on March 29, 2018, as the lid is lowered onto its shipping container at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The spacecraft is shipped on its side to allow for more easy transport and to avoid height-related obstacles such as bridges. From Goddard, the probe was taken by truck to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and flown to Florida aboard a United States Air Force C-17.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman